‘I’m not too posh to make jokes about Ed Miliband’
His publican alter ego is known for being controversial. But it is Al Murray’s upbringing that can cause more offence than his jokes
There’s a single moment’s silence during my breakfast with Al Murray – and that’s as we both ponder why nobody has ever punched him in the face. “I’m amazed it hasn’t happened,” he concludes blithely. “I suppose it must just be such a relief to people that I’m not like him in the flesh.” Because, of course, it wouldn’t be the amiable father-of-two sitting opposite me in a fir-green cashmere V-neck they’d be taking a swing at, but Murray’s alter ego of nearly 25 years, the Pub Landlord, Duke of Draft, Prince of Pils: “him”.
The xenophobic publican was born out of last-minute necessity at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival back in 1994, when a 26-year-old Murray realised he didn’t have a compère for the joint show he was doing with Harry Hill, and decided to pretend the barman was filling in. His alter ego makes for perfect Christmas viewing as he embarks on a one-man mission to Make Christmas Great
Again, in an ITV special airing this Friday. “I hope that it will be like seeing an old relative,” chuckles the Buckinghamshire-born comedian, “but one you’re actually pleased to see. We’re kicking it off with a song called You Can’t Even Say Christmas Anymore because as part of the whole anti-pc thing there seems to be this absurd idea that Christmas is under attack. But then why does it start in August?”
I had wondered whether our interview might be an hour-long mirth-filled blast at PC culture in all its myriad new incarnations. The dangers of censorship and “trigger words” are a hot topic on the comedy circuit right now, and when Murray very publicly supported the comedian Paul Chambers – who was arrested for joking about blowing up an airport on Twitter in 2012 – he likened the authorities’ “attack on free speech” to something “the Stasi” might have done.
But the Oxford-educated son of a British Rail management worker and great-great-great-grandson of William Makepeace Thackeray is too much of an intellectual to be predictable, and is as bored by the anti-pc brigade as he is by the notion that we’re all “febrile people who are going to be offended by everything”.
It is Murray’s upbringing, more than his gags, that seems to cause offence among viewers, with many criticising the disparity between the man who attended boarding school, has fronted several documentaries about the Second World War and guest-edited the Today programme, and his character. “I had someone having a go at me on Twitter the other day for making jokes about Ed Miliband. They were telling me I was from a posher family than Ed’s and so couldn’t make those jokes, and I thought, ‘well this is f------ nonsense’,” he rails. We both wonder how and why that can still be any measure of talent or merit in Britain. “Yes, I live in Chiswick,” shrugs Murray, 49, who is twice divorced but has for seven years been living with his journalist girlfriend, Eleanor, in the fiercely upwardly mobile west London area. “But that doesn’t tell you anything. And this ‘well you’re from this background so you shouldn’t be making these kinds of jokes’ idea just puzzles me. There’s only one part of the transaction that matters, and that’s whether you think I’m funny.”
To that end, news events over the past few years have been a godsend. “It has been a feast really – arguably an invitation [to comedy],” he says with a grin. “What’s going on with Labour right now is particularly good,” he goes on, breaking off to order himself a reassuringly Pub Landlord-esque sausage sandwich. “I’ve found it harder to do stuff about Trump because people are genuinely worried about him, but with politics it’s the usual farce only amplified.”
The #Metoo movement, glamour models posing in their undies and spaghetti in the name of feminism must also be rich pickings for his leering fabulist of a Pub Landlord. “Oh he’s definitely aware of what’s going on,” Murray says, full of affection for his alter ego. “There’s a series of interactions he’s not sure about anymore, [like] whether or not he can shake a woman’s hand.”
Seriously though: is there anything Murray now feels scared to joke about? Any area that’s ring-fenced? “Not scared, no. Comedians are supposed to be on the side of misrule and mischief and flicking Vs at people – but do I think, ‘would I be able to make a joke about that work?’ Absolutely. It has got to be funny.” Yet inevitably comedians occasionally make poor judgments, and nowadays that means immediately issuing public apologies like the one James Corden made in October after cracking a Harvey Weinstein joke at an LA amfar Gala.
Was it really that bad? “Well, it wasn’t that good,” sighs Murray. “The more contentious the subject matter, the better the jokes have to be, and James Corden’s gag was just a bit lazy, and appallingly timed.
“Everyone knows that timing and distance matters in comedy and they’re fools or lying to themselves if they don’t admit that it comes into it. So if you’ve got yourself into a situation where you’re apologising, you’ve probably made a mistake.”
I’m surprised by Murray’s reaction. He concedes that although he can’t think of a gag he has ever had to apologise for (and I can’t find one), there’s a common criticism that the Pub Landlord’s fans are a group of frothing-at-the-mouth bigots who don’t understand satire, though he has too high an opinion of his audiences – and the British public – to believe that. He stood in opposition to Nigel Farage in Thanet South at the 2015 general election under his newly formed Free United Kingdom Party (Fukp) “out of a sense of mischief ” and a desire to prove Russell Brand wrong. “Because it was so daft when he said that ‘voting never changes anything’ – just real b-------.”
One might have expected the Pub Landlord to become firm friends with a man as partial to a pint as Farage, who started off by saying his running made him glad “of some serious competition, but by the end of the campaign he was slagging me off and going on [Andrew] Marr and calling me names, when surely the best thing he could have done is laugh it off ”. In the end, the Pub Landlord was sixth with 318 votes – a result far higher than he expected, as his slack-jawed expression during the declaration attested.
“One of those terrible dads who is never around”, Murray looks forward to spending Christmas with his daughters, Scarlett, 18, and Willow, 14, from his second marriage to Amber Hargreaves – while his unruly creation entertains the rest of us.
“Because the Landlord will be spending the day with all the many people hiding from their families – and he’ll have a plentiful supply of batteries behind the bar for anyone who needs them.”
‘Only one part of the transaction matters, and that’s whether you think I’m funny’
‘The Pub Landlord is no longer sure he can shake a woman’s hand’